Almost five years ago, in the spring of 2012, Adobe launched two major products at one time: Creative Suite 6 and the Creative Cloud. The Creative Suite 6 suites were well received and cost from US$1,300 to $2,600 – while Creative Cloud, a subscription to their full range of creative applications, had a much lower cost of entry and gave customers access to the CS6 tools and services, as well as ongoing upgrades. A year later, Adobe announced that CS6 would be their last perpetual software release, and there would be no CS7.

Adobe did continue providing maintenance (bug/security) fixes to CS6 and refreshing Camera Raw through July 2015, over 3 years after CS6 came out – but then finally discontinued support in order to evolve the platform and pursue further innovations in image processing and workflow technology.

One of the most common upgrade questions we see out there is asking what’s new, what’s different, what’s better, what’s changed between Adobe’s just-launched CC 2017 release and the previous CC 2015.5, CC 2015, CC 2014, CC 2013, or 2012’s Creative Suite 6 – or even the older CS5, CS4, CS3? Or more fundamentally, what are the key new features and advancements in CC 2017 versus prior versions?

Now that the new CC 2017 mile­stone release is shipping world­wide, everyone is entitled to either a free upgrade or a new free trial for 7 days. Ongoing access to these tools requires a Creative Cloud mem­ber­ship (either for one app or for all of them), with discounts available for education custom­ers. Adobe says that if you look at all of the changes since CS6 to the current CC 2017 release, there have been thousands of significant updates – meaning new and enhanced features, added capabil­ities, and perfor­mance boosts – to the key creative applications.

Now that the Adobe CC release has become ubiquitous with over 9 million paid customers, more folks are asking us whether the new versions of the tools in the Creative Cloud can read or save older data/document/project file formats like CS6, CS5.5, CS5, CS4 & CS3…

In fact, since Adobe’s flagship creative toolset CC 2017 is now five major releases past CS6 from 2012 (which they no longer sell), file version compatibility can some­times be an important decision point in moving forward.

In the past, new Adobe product versions have often brought different or expanded file formats to support significant new features – and customers want to know if their existing projects will easily carry forward with them when they upgrade, or if they will be able to save back to older formats for coworkers or clients who may still be running an earlier revision of the programs…

OK then, here’s how it works. Generally, your new CC tools will be able to open and use any and all earlier CS project and data files – including CS3, CS4, CS5, CS5.5, and CS6 files – with no problem or loss of information. In other words, all Adobe software is able to read or import file formats from previous versions of the same program – and it should happen seam­lessly and automatically. The only exception to this is Premiere Pro, where it’s best to open/edit projects in the same versions that created them.

One of the most common upgrade questions we see out there is asking what’s new, what’s different, what’s better, what’s changed between Adobe’s just-launched CC 2015 release and the previous CC 2014, CC 2013, or 2012’s Creative Suite 6 – or even the older CS5, CS4, CS3? Or more fundamentally, what are the key new features in CC 2015 versus prior versions?

Now that the new CC 2015 mile­stone release is out world­wide, everyone is entitled to either a free upgrade or a free 30-day trial (possibly up to 60 days). Ongoing access to these tools requires a Creative Cloud mem­ber­ship (either for one app or for all of them), with discounts available for education custom­ers. Adobe says that if you look at all of the changes since CS6 to the current CC 2015 release, there have been well over 1,000 significant updates – meaning new and improved features, added capabil­ities, and perfor­mance improve­ments – to the key creative applications.

This month we’re celebrating our 8th anniversary here at PDT, and proud of it! So it seems the perfect time to put together a comprehensive review of the best and most-shared articles and resources published here since our site launched in 2009.

These are the top posts that consistently have the highest readership on our site, month after month, covering all major Adobe software products… They’re broken out by topic below in case you’ve missed any, or are new here – so bookmark, share, and enjoy!

At the same time, Adobe is continuing to sell 2012’s CS6 version for people that prefer the traditional licensing model instead of CC sub­scriptions, though statistically fewer than 1 in 5 customers are still going that direction.

Meanwhile, the 15 new CC applications have brought hundreds of new features and enhancements compared to CS6, with more being added all the time through ongoing upgrades that are included free with all memberships… Thus far, the latest CC tools have been getting nearly 5-star reviews from customers, as they sign up at the rate of 65,000 per week. But still, because of the relative newness of the Creative Cloud offering, some confusion abounds and there remain a few big myths floating around out there.

So all in all, there has been a lot of change to digest over the past year, and folks often ask us which route is best to take – what are the pros and cons of each option?

When Creative Suite 6 arrived in 2012, there came with it a new way to buy Adobe software that the world had not seen before: the Creative Cloud. Traditionally, most Adobe products had only been sold with “perpetual” licensing that doesn’t expire. The flip side is that these best-in-class tools often come with a steep price tag that is out of reach for many folks – though there have always been substantial discounts when upgrading from recent older releases, plus much lower pricing for some market segments like students and teachers…

When Creative Cloud first entered the scene, there was (and still is) some uncertainty about what it meant and where it was going… But despite that skepticism, the Cloud has since gained strong adoption to become the company’s dominant product line with most customers choosing it over CS6, which Adobe still continues to sell for people who want it. With Creative Cloud you receive the newer “CC” release that succeeds CS6 as the latest and greatest toolset, and generally gets high ratings from users.

Adobe CC is available only via a subscription model which, yes, is cloud-based in some ways – but the name has been called confusing and misconceptions abound because in fact the major applications are not online or web-based, but still run locally on your computer as before. What’s more, the company has been clear that powerful tools like Photoshop may add some online capabilities but will never run completely in the cloud.

Here we’ve put together a complete set of Adobe CS6 direct download links for all the new products (Windows and Mac OS), for instant easy access and the ability to use your own download manager or download assistant if you have any difficulty with what Adobe normally employs and need to get the trials without it…

Whether you’re considering buying a full version or will be upgrading from a prior CS release, or even if you’re getting a volume license or joining the Creative Cloud, you can always use these free trials to install, run, and activate the CS6 software on your system, without needing to reinstall. All of these CS6 trials will run fully for 30 (or possibly more) free days after initial launch.

The 2015 edition of the Creative Cloud is the most powerful and versatile toolset Adobe has ever produced and we’re seeing a lot of demand for good training resources to learn how to best use this fast-growing product…

Last year we posted details on over 1,000 pages of free ebooks for CS6. But if you’re just getting started with the core CC 2015 design tools, what’s better than a step-by-step book that will teach you the essentials of Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign from the ground up?

Fortunately there’s a very helpful new book you can download that will teach you all of this for free, courtesy of author Professor Thomas Payne… The way the book does this is by intro­ducing and explain­ing the tools in a logical way that builds upon what is previ­ously learned. These applica­tions present a vast array of buttons and gadgets that can be over­whelming to the new user. This book makes sense of it all, not showing how every­thing works, but instead giving a found­ation and a path to learn about all those controls and what they can do for you.

Ever since it was announced seventeen months ago, Adobe made it clear that Creative Cloud was going to be a new way of purchasing their software, an avenue for anyone to use a complete collection of the most recent versions of all of their industry-leading creative tools with a set membership plan.

Last May the company rolled out the offering, and we’ve seen the Creative Cloud continuing to gain momentum – in fact, recently passing millions of members and signing up tens of thousands more every week… Meanwhile, the tradi­tional option of buying a one-time Creative Suite license has remained for those customers who prefer that path.